Category Archives: My failing sanity

Festively Limping To The Finish Line

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I won’t ask if you are all ready for Christmas, because I know you already are! a friend (HI GLENN) said to me last week, and it’s true, my gifts were all purchased over a month ago, cards have been sent out weeks ago, everything is wrapped, and yet. This last week, these last few days before a break, may just be my undoing. We are all so exhausted and completely burnt out that it is taking every ounce of energy to rouse myself and the kids out of bed in the morning and just get through the day. We are all counting down the days until vacation, even though it specifically goes against my Enjoy The Moment mantra. If we are always looking ahead to the next thing, we can forget about what’s happening right now. Or, as Ferris Bueller said, Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.

Deep thoughts from teen movies of the Eighties.

What is it about this week? This morning I felt like my sanity was holding on by a thread, and not a sturdy thread either, but one that is completely frayed and shoddy. Yesterday my younger son said that he thought there was no school on Friday. Weeks ago I had checked the school website; since Thursday is “activity day” I thought that might be the case. But on the website, Friday was listed as Last Day of Classes. So, by that logic, I concluded that Friday was indeed the Last Day of Classes and there would be school.

Strangely, the kids kept telling me that over the morning announcements, there were x-1 days of school left, when I felt there should be x days left, based on Friday being the Last Day of Classes. After my son’s claim yesterday though, I looked again at the website. Friday: Last Day of Classes. But oh! When I started to scroll down to confirm the date of my older son’s Environmental and Outdoor Education trip to the mountains, I noticed something. Underneath Friday: Last Day of Classes was Friday: PD Day NO CLASSES.

WHAT.

It seems to me like there could have been a much better way of communicating that information. I looked through all the paper forms in my possession and not one mentioned this fairly salient fact. To be sure, it is not a big deal; if anything, it’s an unexpected bonus since that will allow me to have a much more relaxed morning, but yet it was unsettling.

More unsettling was the realization that the Grade Eight Ski Trip – for which no forms or information has been distributed to parents as of yet – was on the exact same day that my eighth grader was due to go in to get molds made for his upcoming orthodontic work. Under normal circumstances, this would be No Big Deal. I would Figure Things Out. But with everything else going on right now, and a January packed full of one-off appointments, and the fact that I had already rescheduled this particular appointment twice, and this appointment needed to occur 7-10 days before the actual braces are put on actual teeth, and finding an appointment time that both works for my crazy schedule and minimizes the missing of Important, Difficult To Make Up classes is incredibly trying, well, this was the thing that took the thread from Sturdy to Completely Frayed.

I’ll just call before I head into the studio, I thought, with deep ujjayi breaths. I had a few minutes between the time the office opened – 8:00 – and the time I had to leave. No problem! Except that I kept getting the If you are calling to reschedule or book an appointment, please contact us during our regular office hours message. But I AM calling you during regular office hours! This IS your regular office hours, why is no one answering the PHONE?

Well. I got it done, not without the requisite mental anguish. The finish line is indeed in sight. Soon, I will be able to pour giant glugs of Almond Baileys into my coffee and drink it in my pajamas, with nowhere to go and no place to be. Soon.

I don’t want to complain, I really don’t. I do love this time of year; I love the parties and gatherings and getting cards in the mailbox. Speaking of which, last year someone sullenly tweeted that they had received only one Christmas card, and it was a standard-issue from a local business. It turned out that she had sent ZERO cards but was expecting many. Well. That might not be how it works. Perhaps expectations need to be adjusted. And perhaps I need to adjust my own expectations about my own limits and go to bed every night this week at 8:00. That sounds like a very good plan.

Speaking of expectations, I had very low ones yesterday when I drove into the Costco parking lot. Costco, one week before Christmas. I was, to be honest, expecting a complete nightmare and I spent a few minutes in my car just deep breathing. I had just taught a yoga class and I discussed the stressful time of year with my students, using words like “self-care” and “meditative breathing” and I felt like the teacher could be the student, so to speak. The parking lot was strewn with carts, which, as we all know, causes me much grief, and the man in the car across from mine literally shoved his cart into the VERY SAME SNOWBANK from which I had retrieved a cart only two weeks prior, and drove off. DEEP BREATHING, SERENITY NOW.

So I was expecting the literal worst as I went into the store, wondering, not for the first time, if the items on my list really were worth the angst involved. And then…nothing. The produce section was a bit crazy, due to very poor aisle engineering, but the shopping trip was really…fine. All my items were available, some were discounted, all the produce looked great, and then when I went to check out there was NO LINE. I wheeled my giant heavy cart up to the till and immediately unloaded. WHEN HAS THAT EVER HAPPENED, I ASK? Certainly it was not what I was expecting the week before Christmas. Maybe it was all that cart karma during the year. It all paid off.

And speaking of karma, my lovely friend and yoga student Sara (HI SARA) brought me these cookies, along with – get this – chocolate pretzel bark and honestly, this kind and beautiful gesture absolutely turned my whole day around. I went from Being Ready To Cry to having my sanity reinstated. It is no longer hanging by a thread. It is now securely double-stitched together. Never underestimate what kindness will do for someone, especially this time of year. xo

Buddhas, Black Friday, and Bikinis

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I’m torn between not wanting time to go any faster than it already does, living mindfully in the moment, savouring every day, and also counting down the next three weeks until Christmas vacation. On the one hand – mindfulness! On the other – hoo boy, am I looking forward to the break.

Were you on the edge of your seat, wondering how the white chocolate fudge turned out? Well, wonder no more! IT DID NOT GO WELL.

I was so optimistic until the time came to cut it; it was not dissimilar to cutting into a thick pudding. Which is to say, it was messy and weird. Again, how? How did this happen? How do two things that become solid when frozen become a non-Newtonian fluid when mixed together? Why do I need a degree in chemistry to make fudge? At any rate, I was very disappointed. By this time, I had sunk approximately $15 worth of ingredients into that little pan, and I was loathe to throw it out. It’s like throwing $15 in the compost bin. I put the pan back in the freezer and took the dog for a walk.

Taking a walk is great for generating ideas, isn’t it? The little loop Barkley and I walk takes about thirty minutes, and it is good thinking time for me. It’s also a good way to practice mindfulness and notice my surroundings. For example, there is one house on our loop that has a Buddha statue on their front step; it’s not just any Buddha statue, either. There is a jagged edge where the head used to be. This headless Buddha has been there for many months, and the strangest thing is that the head sits on the drain spout directly beside its decapitated body. To my inexpert handywoman eye, it seems like it would be easily fixed with some Gorilla Glue, but no. I can’t help wondering why. It cannot be unnoticed by the residents of the house. Is it some kind of statement? Mere laziness? We may never know the answer.

In any case, as I was walking, I wondered why I was so attached to the idea of little squares of fudge. Practice non-attachment, Nicole. I came up with the idea of rolling the fudge-like-substance into little balls and then dusting with cocoa powder, like a truffle. I tried later that day and it was incredibly messy and oddly difficult, but it somewhat worked.

They did not hold shape particularly well, but my younger son assured me that they were delicious and that he would volunteer as tribute to eat the entire thing, if no one else wanted them. Always willing to sacrifice, that’s him.

I made a coffee date last Friday with a colleague of mine; we both had a brief window of time and she had an appointment in my quadrant of the city. For those of you who I have had actual coffee dates with, you already know that I never have any clue about cool and interesting coffee shops. I never know where anything is and I’m always at a loss to suggest a venue. But for this coffee date, I suggested the Starbucks at a nearby mall; my colleague’s appointment was just down the hill from it, and I live about five minutes away. Normally I do not set foot in the mall after mid-November, but I thought 10:30 on a Friday morning, how bad could it be?

It was Black Friday.

Later, when I was relating this story, a friend (HI ALANA) said to me How could you not know it was Black Friday? Didn’t you get all the emails? Well, yes. My inbox had been exploding over the past week, and yet I never made the connection between the mall and Black Friday. Neither did my colleague, which is how I ended up circling the road-rage-filled parking lot, trying to find a spot, and having to allow an extra twenty minutes to leave the parking lot, so that I wouldn’t be late for my class.

It’s ridiculous, really. Black Friday ISN’T A THING IN CANADA. Well, I guess it IS a thing now, no matter how much I deny it. The parking lot was similar to Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, with the exact kind of panicked, I must buy all the things attitude that one might see on those days. It was insane. The only upside is that I got to see all the pretty Christmas decorations that were not up when last I was in the mall, such as a gigantic sparkly moose.

And as much as I deny the existence of Black Friday, I am not made of stone. The endless barrage of emails from various retailers wore me down, and I actually clicked on the one from La Vie En Rose. I was in the market for a new bikini, anyway, and they had absolutely ridiculous prices. The one I fell in love with was obtained for a mere $22. Twenty-two dollars! Of course, my husband looked at the photo and pronounced it “ugly” and that the “embroidery looks old-ladyish.”

Well. I do not think it’s UGLY but he may have a point in terms of old-ladyish-ness. A few years ago I realized that triangle-and-string bikinis were really not suitable anymore, for a few reasons, most notably that they were no longer flattering – hello, gravity – and also they were not providing the, shall I say, coverage that I think is appropriate for a woman my age who is the mother of two teenage boys. Since I refuse to wear one-pieces for the same reasons I refuse to wear rompers or jumpsuits, more modest bikinis are my new jam. The key word here is COVERAGE. I don’t want to end up dressing like Stacy’s Mom.

Speaking of teen boys, this week I took them to the dentist for their cleaning and checkups. They are still going to the same pediatric dentist we’ve been patronizing for a decade. It occurred to me for the first time that perhaps it might be time to switch dentists; not because I have any issues with the actual dentist practice, in fact, it’s the opposite. I love their whole office. However, I thought maybe it was time to move on when I looked at my sons and their feet hanging off the small purple dental chairs, their heads popping up above the headrests. I asked the dentist at what point should we say good-bye to them, and he said that he sees kids up to age eighteen. I pictured their future six-foot-plus frames squished into the child-sized dental chairs.

The thing is, their office is so convenient. It is literally a three-minute drive from my house, and approximately that long from their school. They had an 8:00 appointment and both were back at the school by 8:25. I mean, you can’t buy that kind of convenience. Maybe I will keep them there until they are 18, their deep voices will be a change from the usual high-pitched screaming that is de rigeur in any given pediatric dental office.

Corrections

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A few days ago I was making a new acquaintance, a lovely woman who turned to introduce me to her friend. “Have you met?” she asked, and I opened my mouth to answer, but before the words could come out, her friend indicated that we had never before met and it was a pleasure to make my acquaintance. I closed my mouth, smiled, and echoed the nice to meet you too sentiments.

The thing is, over the past decade, I have met that same woman at least a dozen times, and every single time we have had a similar encounter. In the past, I would have mentioned that we met before, detailing the whereabouts and mutual friends, but each time this woman indicated that the meetings left no impression whatsoever and I was a complete stranger to her. This week, though, I mentally shrugged and went along with it.

Who knew I was so unmemorable?

It reminded me of how my next-door neighbour called me Michelle for the first twelve or thirteen years that we lived side-by-side. I was recounting this to a friend who asked why on earth I wouldn’t have corrected him. I did. I did correct him, but after the first several years I just gave up. I am Michelle now. Oddly enough, he now calls me by my actual name, which is nice, but a little unsettling after all these years of responding to Michelle.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to correct people.

When I make appointments, be it for doctor, dentist, hair salon, or bikini wax, I always have a very specific date and time in mind. I do not call to make an appointment until I check my calendar carefully and decide which of those specific dates and times would work. I don’t have the kind of job where I can easily switch things around; I have classes at certain times, and I work around that. Back in the summer I called to make appointments for the boys and myself for the doctor. I booked Friday – two weeks ago – at 2:00.

As I was driving to the appointment, my phone rang. (Please spare me your concern, I have Bluetooth.) It was the doctor’s office.

Me: Hi! We are on our way to you right now!

Doctor’s Office: Well, your appointments started at 1:00 and you missed them completely.

Me: What? Oh. I…had written them down as starting at 2:00?

DO: ONE O’CLOCK.

Me: Okay…will the doctor still see us today?

DO: No! He has a VERY full clinic this afternoon and cannot possibly accommodate you when you are THIS LATE! *insert deep and irritated sigh*

Now, when I speak to my children utilizing the tone of voice that the doctor’s office was using on me, it means that my children are In Need Of Correction, and They Are Not Only Very Wrong, But Also Kind Of Stupid. I save this Very Sharp Voice for Problems And Idiocy, and I don’t use it lightly. Therefore, I can tell you that I felt Very Small and also Very Stupid, in addition to feeling Kind Of Defensive, because I knew I wasn’t in the wrong. I teach on Fridays until 1:00 and I would have never made an appointment at that time, since I do not have a magic teleporter. But I also knew that really, there was absolutely nothing to be done. It didn’t really matter who was in the wrong (NOT ME) because the result was the same: we wouldn’t be seeing the doctor that day.

I took a breath, thinking this was a good time to Model Good Behaviour to the kids who were in the backseat listening to this exchange. I apologized for the mistake, and asked what could be done. Could I reschedule? I could and I did, not without some consternation in my mind.

I spent some time, as I made a few turns to go back home, being annoyed not only at not getting the appointments, but also for being Spoken To Sharply. No one likes to be made to feel like they screwed something up, especially when they didn’t. But then I started to think of it a different way: it was a gift. After a very hectic few weeks where I barely had time to sit down, I was given a free afternoon. I could go home and read a book! Have a glass of wine! Do nothing! I had been given the gift of time and after all, what did a few weeks’ difference make when I had made appointments in the summer?

Yesterday I had a call and a voice mail on my cell, which rarely happens – who calls anyone these days? But there it was, for the first time ever since becoming a patient in 2011, a reminder call from the doctor’s office. I have never had a reminder call before but I probably have “FLAKE” written on my file now. Well, it’s probably for the best. That way, if such a silly thing ever happens again, I can reschedule the appointment without being made to feel like I wrecked the doctor’s entire afternoon and everyone has been Highly Inconvenienced by me and my flaky ways.

As I said, it often doesn’t pay to correct people. In fact, I might go out on a limb and say it rarely pays to correct people. In this case there was absolutely nothing to be gained by it, I got a free afternoon out of it, and we still have appointments, albeit a few weeks later than planned. Now, here’s the true test: what time will I see the doctor this afternoon? Will it be 2:00? Or will he be, as he usually is when I go to see him, running significantly behind schedule? Stay tuned!

Let them eat really pretty cake

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In case you were waiting on the edge of your seat, yes, I did survive the seven-hour-ten-teen-boys birthday party on Saturday. More than that, it was probably the lowest-maintenance and most-enjoyable birthday party ever given in my house. Literally all I did was provide food; the boys entertained themselves very easily. What they did I do not know exactly; there was some trampolining, there was some extremely loud noise-making, there was a LOT of eating. At one point it was so quiet I was a bit concerned, but when I peeked downstairs they were all busily playing a card game, which was very unexpected. The sole downside was that all the adults who came to pick up, and I myself, were kept up way past our bedtimes, and we all looked like zombies at 11 pm.

However, a great time was had by all and the cake I had made turned out really nicely:

The birthday boy decorated it with Rolos just in case there wasn’t enough sugar in the caramel frosting and drizzle.

I recently purchased new, somewhat pricey, 9 inch round cake pans to replace the lowest-cost-possible-off-brand 8 inch ones I bought about twenty years ago. The latter are shallow little things that would result in very strange looking layer cakes. Twenty years of strange-looking layer cakes, people, and let me tell you, these new pans are amazing! I am reminded yet again that one gets what one pays for, particularly when it comes to kitchenware. Saturday morning I took the pans out of the oven and marvelled at the absolutely perfect layers. I forced everyone to come into the kitchen and admire them. Why didn’t I buy these pans before? I asked rhetorically, to which all three guys answered in unison, Because you’re cheap!

Well. Cheap is a harsh word; I’ve always been loathe to replace something that is Working Perfectly Well, even though Working Perfectly Well does not equal Working Optimally, as we all know. May I remind you of the life-changing effects of finally, after many, many years, obtaining a really good garlic press, vegetable peeler, and spatula? After Kondo-ing the house and my life I have been especially cognizant about bringing excess Stuff into the house. We don’t need more STUFF! I will say sternly to anyone who will listen. I think of this as virtuous but as you can see, it can also be construed as a character flaw that can only end in sub-optimal food preparation and results.

The econometrician in me desperately wants to do a cost-benefit analysis of this phenomenon, including the economic term “utility.”

This week has been busy with yoga teaching and grocery shopping, my dual loves. I am not even saying that ironically, I love yoga teaching and, in a very different way, I love grocery shopping. Mostly. I was at Costco and was shocked, absolutely shocked, at the state of the parking lot. I know what you’re thinking! Nicole, we have really heard enough about errant Costco carts and how people who don’t return them are the Worst People In The World. Well, surprise! I wasn’t going to talk about carts, although yes, those people are the Worst People In The World and I fervently wish Bad Costco Karma on them all; Bad Costco Karma consisting mostly of Long Lineups, Blocked Aisles, and The Discontinuation Of That One Product You Came To Costco For.

Moving on, it wasn’t the cart situation that shocked me yesterday; for one thing, I’m becoming deadened to it, for another, there were many errant carts but the situation wasn’t as bad as it often is. No, what was shocking was the multiple lineups of cars trying to access the gas station. Apparently the gas station is going through some refurbishment, although I am unclear as to what this entails. Perhaps there are fewer pumps available? I don’t know, all I know is that there were bumper-to-bumper lineups in all possible directions, all ending at the gas station. I am not exaggerating when I say there must have been fifty cars lined up to get gas. It looked like a photograph from the gasoline shortages of the 1970s, but with fewer Oldsmobiles.

Why would anyone spend thirty minutes of pure aggravation, idling their cars and eating up the very energy that one seeks at a gas station? Well, according to a lady I chatted with in the parking lot, the price of gasoline was a solid ten cents lower than anywhere else in the city. Ten cents is a pretty good savings, but when we do the math, it works out to – on average, assuming that everyone’s tank is about the same as mine – a $5 or $6 difference. Now, I am a frugal person, although you might not be able to tell from my extensive Lululemon wardrobe. I regularly price compare and calculate per-unit costs of household goods, I shop at different stores for different deals and I am absolutely obsessed with collecting and redeeming PC Optimum points. I KEEP SUB-OPTIMAL CAKE PANS FOR TWENTY YEARS BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND $20 TO REPLACE THEM. I tell you this: there is no way that I would undergo such an endeavour to save $5 or $6. Hey, I’m not judging! Maybe it’s worthwhile to the fifty cars idling away, blocking the parking lot exits. But, as I nosily peered at the people in the cars, they all looked as agitated and irritated as one might imagine.

Speaking of cars, I was driving to the yoga studio behind a car with a vanity license plate. The plate read “NIX TOY” which I took to mean, Nick’s Toy. Now, when you think of a car that would be construed as a Toy, what do you imagine? I think of a hot-looking sporty convertible or perhaps a refurbished muscle car. Something shiny and fast, in a sexy colour like red. What I don’t generally picture is a white four-door Buick sedan, which this car was.

Well, I will withhold judgement on that one. Maybe the owner went from a minivan like mine to a sedan, which might seem Toy-Like in comparison. Who is to say, really. At the moment I feel like my new cake pans have effectively changed my life for the better; perhaps a sedan revolutionized Nick’s life too.

Stepping into madness.

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I work very hard to be a calm and zen-like person, but those who know me well know that I am, deep down, a controlling and Type A person. It’s not even that deep down, one only needs to load the dishwasher differently from me, or fold the tea towels in halves instead of thirds, to know this. I like to think that being controlling and Type A is not actually in opposition to being calm and zen-like, really; I embrace the adage that you cannot control external forces but you can control how you react to them.

With that in mind, it doesn’t take a psychology degree to make the connection between the end of summer, and the new school year as a demarcation of the rapid passing of time, and my embarking on a Project. Normally these Projects are of the Cleaning and Organizing Type, which is, to me, only a benefit. One year, you may recall, I completely Kondo-d my entire house, donating twenty-five garbage bags of clothing and household objects. Another year I embraced the Kitchn Cure, right down to my multiple fridges and freezers. No one is harmed in these Projects; they fulfill my need for order, and the house is better off for it.

The only exception was the year my youngest started kindergarten; the day before school started I decided to make birthday invitations for his entire class, which ended with an inexplicably broken printer and me, sobbing on the phone to the printer help desk. I cried so hard that the very kind gentleman on the other end told me everything would be all right, he would take care of everything, and maybe I would like to get a glass of water? He ended up sending me a brand-new printer at no charge, so I guess the house was better off for it, even if it was at the expense of my own nervous breakdown.

It started off innocently enough yesterday; I decided to make granola. The house filled with a delicious, maple coconut aroma, and I noticed that a couple of the kitchen cupboards were a little smudged. I decided to wash them, which is not an unusual occurrence. The cupboards are white and I do wash them down once a month or so. But yesterday, after washing the cupboards, I started washing down and polishing all the appliances, big and small. Then I took everything out from under the sink and began scrubbing. Then I noticed some smudges on the wall in the back entry, which resulted in my scrubbing down the entire entry and the stair railings. I couldn’t stop there; the stairs leading downstairs also seemed smudgy, and so did the back door.

This way leads madness.

I could actually feel myself spiraling out of control; I recalled that there were some toothpaste spatters in the bathroom which meant I was soon washing the walls there too. As I scrubbed out under the bathroom sink, I realized that if I didn’t stop soon, I would be tearing all the pictures off the walls and moving furniture to wash the walls behind it, which would probably lead to hours of cleaning that no one, save me, would ever notice. I vowed to just wipe down the hall cupboards and stop; it took every ounce of willpower to empty my bucket and put it down in the basement. As it was, my kids and their friends came in from the back yard to get snacks, and were tiptoeing around me as I washed the hardwood. Don’t worry Nicole, we can minimize the amount of feet on the floor, one of them said as he took enormous steps on his tiptoes. In an attempt to model normal healthy behaviour, I stopped cleaning after finishing the floors.

Many years ago, my mother-in-law told me that when she was first married, her mother-in-law washed all the walls in the house once a month. Once a month! she said to me. Really, that’s too much. Once a season is plenty. I remember staring at her, thinking once a SEASON? The walls in my house get washed a) when they are going to be painted, and b) piecemeal, when I notice smudges. And c) when I become obsessive at the end of summer, I guess.

This cleaning binge put me in mind of a book I just read and loved, David Sedaris’ Calypso. Are you a Sedaris fan? If so, this book is a must-read. It is, in my opinion, his best writing ever. Oh, to write like David Sedaris! Every sentence is gold. One essay in, and I was telling my husband that it was on my Christmas list – I knew I would want to read it over and over again, and I had only gotten it from the library. My husband’s response was It’s August but no matter. Gold. Several times my family asked what I was laughing at, and more than once I was doubled over, with that silent laughter that comes from the inability to breathe and make any sound, tears running down my face.

Calypso includes the essay Stepping Out, which is my favourite thing he has ever written, and also perfectly articulates why I cannot have a fitness tracker. Some of us cannot be trusted. My husband has a fitness tracker and he uses it like a normal person. He looks at his steps, calories burned, and whatever else a fitness tracker records, and then he goes on with his life. If it were me, all semblance of a normal life would go out the window and I would be welcoming Fitbit, My New Overlord.

In the words of David Sedaris, “…there’d be no end to it until my feet snapped off at the ankles. Then it’d just be my jagged bones stabbing into the soft ground. Why is it some people can manage a thing like a Fitbit, while others go off the rails and allow it to rule, and perhaps even ruin, their lives?”

See, this is the thing. Self-awareness is where it’s at, and given my propensity to spin off the rails, I can say with confidence that a Fitbit is not for me. Occasionally I will mention to my husband that it would be “interesting to have one,” at which he stares at me silently, probably imagining a life with a lunatic who is “just getting her steps in” to the detriment of everything else. I mean, I’m already at the point in my life where I scope out parking spots that are the farthest from the door, and I refuse to take an elevator for anything less than seven floors. And imagine what would happen during the last week of summer vacation? I would probably end up in a different province, pumping my arms enthusiastically. And with my terrible sense of direction, I may never make it back.

Another thing to delegate to the Blue Job Category

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I realized with a start that NEXT WEEK is the last week of summer vacation, and as always at this time of year, I am filled with low-level melancholy about the ending of my favourite season and the rapid passage of time, et cetera. Landslide on repeat, as it were.

The past few weeks have been characterized by two opposing forces: trying to squeeze in lots of fun activities – trips to the zoo, the amusement park, endless afternoons of the kids hanging out with friends – and trying to squeeze in all the non-fun activities like haircuts, oil changes, and back-to-school shopping.

Normally the boys only like to shop with their dad for clothes, as he is generally the Fun One and also I am less than patient when it comes to clothes shopping. I know! It doesn’t seem quite right, does it? But it’s true. A few weeks ago I had the boys try on everything in their dressers, and to pile on the floor all the things that don’t fit or that they don’t like. Does this shirt spark joy? I didn’t say to them, but that was my idea. The piles were enormous and the dressers were looking pretty scant. One child in particular had no pants; the other had one pair that was skirting the line between “acceptable” and this:

My husband took them pants shopping, to everyone’s delight. Well, “delight” might be a strong word. Still, who knew that I would one day delegate clothes shopping to the Blue Job category? Certainly not me. Maybe it would be different if I had girls.

I remember when back-to-school shopping filled me with utter joy; I’ve always enjoyed clothes and fashion and every August I would think about what my signature look would be for the upcoming year. I wrote about it here if you’d like to see all my favourite outfits of my teen years. Dreadfully enough, many of those outfits are making a comeback.

Pants aside, a few items still needed to be purchased, along with standard school supplies, and so I took a deep breath and prepared myself, vowing to be patient.

I took them school supply shopping at Walmart, which – Walmart. Walmart, am I right?

I joined a whole army of moms who all had eye-rolling teens in tow and who all sported looks of grim determination on their faces. We are all in this together, ladies. We whipped through the list pretty quickly, except for one item: paper. PAPER. There were several thousand different boxes of pencil crayons, glue sticks, and pens, and yet regular, lined paper was nowhere to be found. A woman beside me, grilling her teen daughter on her preference for pencil case colours – do you like this one? How about this one? For the love of god just PICK ONE – seemed like she had been there a while, so I asked her if she had seen lined paper. She hadn’t, and we looked at each other with perplexed expressions. It must be here somewhere, how can they not have paper? After searching for upward of fifteen minutes, which is fifteen hours in Walmart-time, I found the last two packages of foolscap. Do they still call it foolscap? I’m not sure how it’s possible to not have paper during the back-to-school shopping blitz, but I imagined being mugged in the parking lot for my two packages of paper. I mean, who is doing the ordering here? It doesn’t expire, people, just order some more paper.

I later saw that mom at a distance, still searching for items on her list, and presumably paper was one of them. I felt a little guilty for having the only two packages, apparently, in the store, but I did not approach her. When it comes to Walmart, it’s every woman for herself.

After that episode, I should have just called it a day, but no. I pushed on. There were still a few clothing items to be purchased and although I would have been more than willing to delegate, my husband has been working a lot, weekends included. After the paper-related guilt, my soul couldn’t take anymore, so I womaned up and went to the mall.

Mothers of teens, you know that moment you realize that kids’ clothing doesn’t really fit anymore and now you find yourself shopping in the men’s department?

We ended up, on my husband’s suggestion, at Bluenotes, which sells no children’s clothing whatsoever but focuses more, as the salesgirl said to me, on young adults. The salesgirl and I also had a spirited discussion about the ubiquity of what are commonly called Mom Jeans but I would pedantically argue that they would be better referred to as Grandma Jeans. After all, what moms do you know that wear Mom Jeans? I know of none.

Grandma Jeans might not sound like a sexy marketing slogan, but when you consider that Granny Grey is a hot new hair colour for the youth of today, maybe it could be!

Speaking of Grandma/ Mom, I was getting my hair coloured when I spied a People magazine, which I don’t normally read, but on the cover was an article about being a new mom at age 54. It was Bridgette Nielson, who just had a baby at age 54 and by no means am I one to take away someone else’s joy, but wow. I was exhausted just thinking of it. Of course, it’s very likely that Bridgette Nielson will be able to afford a staff to help out with those sleepless nights but still. I mean, just imagine back-to-school shopping when you are in your sixties! I need to lie down at the very idea.

A Confession

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Aretha Franklin is, without a doubt, my favourite singer of all time; what a gift she was to the world. I love every single thing she has ever done, but I especially love this clip from 2015 because wow. Talk about owning it. I love how she swans out in a gigantic floor length fur coat, 2015 be damned, dripping with jewelry and in that absolutely fabulous dress, to belt out Natural Woman. That voice, not dimmed in the least by her age, which was 73. In fact, her voice may have been better than ever. I love how she just drops the coat to just finish it off. What a goddess.

Sirius is honouring her by making the Soul Town channel into a tribute to Aretha for the next week. This morning I heard her renditions of Satisfaction and Let It Be, and she makes the Stones and Beatles sound like absolute hacks. Go home, boys, you’ve been owned. That woman was a queen, let’s not ever forget that.

Speaking of Sirius, a few weeks ago I mentioned that after years of my declarations that I Do Not Need Sirius In My Car, I finally acquiesced and my husband had it installed, just in time for our Epic Road Trip. I am so glad we did because I don’t think I could have listened to our Summer Mix 2014! CD one more time. The only blip came when my husband, whose musical tastes are much more contemporary than my own, refused to listen to Seventies Soft Rock or Pop Hits of the Eighties, two of my staple channels. I am extremely open-minded about music in general – I enjoy a wide and eclectic variety of genres – and so I let the doggy have his bone, so to speak. This went fine until the last long leg, when I snapped and declared that I Could Not Listen To “The Middle” One More Time. Deadlock had been reached, and we ended up compromising by listening to Bloomberg for four straight hours, which was both fascinating and kind of depressing, as this was exactly when the Chinese trade sanctions were starting.

The other day I was scrolling through my news feed and I came across this:

Never before have I felt so seen by an Onion headline, not since this one:

Oh, remember those days when the kids were small and a vacation was not at all a vacation, but rather a trip, and one in which all regular chores and drudgery had to be done, just in less convenient circumstances? Thank god that passed. When the kids were little our “vacations” were exclusively limited to “trips to visit my in-laws” and I remember the sheer exhaustion of it all. In fact, when the kids were two and three I remember saying to a fellow preschool mom that I couldn’t imagine ever PAYING to go on a vacation just so I could be exhausted in a different place. Clearly my sleep deprivation was affecting me deeply; obviously I am in a different stage of life now, one in which I can sit by the pool with a drink and a book for hours before wondering casually if the kids were hungry yet. It gets better Current Me wants to tell Past Me. Whenever I see a woman on a plane with little ones in tow, and the look on her face says why am I doing this I always give an empathetic smile and a silent prayer for her that she will get five minutes to herself.

But back to the Guest Offering Help With Dishes. This is a confession, you guys, which means I am not proud of this, but instead I am telling you something a little bit shameful, and that is that I really cannot bear to have help in the kitchen. Well, that’s not exactly true; my younger son is my dish drier, my older son is the table-and-chair wiper, my husband scrapes plates and loads the dishwasher and packages up leftovers (but only in containers that I have approved, because I am an insane control freak). Guests, though. I want my guests to just enjoy another drink and relax, or chat with me while I do the dishes, but I do not under any circumstances want help.

I know, I know, it’s terrible. In fact, I wonder if it’s some kind of pathological illness. Why wouldn’t I welcome help? It’s perverse! After all, I happily help in other people’s kitchens. But when it comes to mine…well. A few months ago we had dear friends visiting, and after dinner my sweet, sweet friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) started stacking plates. She took one look at me and said “You don’t want me to do this, do you?” I shook my head and we burst out laughing at my weird mental deficiency. Then she had a glass of wine while I washed the dishes AND I WAS HAPPY.

When we were staying at our friends’ place in Vancouver (HI CHRIS!) I was helping in the kitchen by drying the dishes. I asked my friend where to put a particular knife, and he said “Oh, anywhere. It’s a small kitchen, I’ll find it.” People, I stood there for several seconds in shock because I had obviously found Bizarro Nicole. What, you don’t have a specific nonnegotiable spot for every single kitchen item and when said item is put away wrong, you don’t silently plot the murder of the individual responsible? Huh. 

Well, the world is a rich tapestry. It takes all kinds, as Grandma would say. My husband and I were chatting the other day and I said that I was “easy-going.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I am! I’m very easy-going!” I said defensively. He wordlessly went to the knife block and switched the knives around while my blood pressure skyrocketed and my eyes bulged out.

I’m easy-going about many things but the knife block is not one of them. Or the entire kitchen. Or the entire house. But otherwise! Very placid and carefree. Yes. Very.